Novus Ordinem Voldemort
by BackslashEcho
Summary: What if Harry, the DA, and the Order had lost the Battle of Hogwarts? The Second Wizarding War would have dragged on, perhaps for years, as Harry and his remaining allies are forced to go deep underground to continue the fight after Voldemort openly took over the Ministry. Inspired by www(dot)imgur(dot)com(slash)gallery(slash)qdQWI, by Pragmatique.
1. Prologue

_**The Battle of the Department of Mysteries, 18 June 1996 (Seven Years Ago)**_

As Harry scrambled up, he looked around and saw Lucius Malfoy smash into the dais on which Sirius and Bellatrix were now duelling. Malfoy aimed his wand at Harry and Neville again, but before he could draw breath to strike, Remus Lupin had jumped between them.

"Harry, round up the others and GO!"

Harry seized Neville by the shoulder of his robes and lifted him bodily on to the first tier of stone steps surrounding the dais. Neville's legs, still bewitched by the Dancing Feet Charm, twitched and jerked and would not support his weight; Harry heaved again with all the strength he possessed and they climbed another step.

A spell hit the stone bench at Harry's heel; it crumbled away and he fell back to the step below. Neville sank to the ground, his legs still jerking and thrashing, and he thrust the prophecy into his pocket.

"Come on!" said Harry desperately, hauling at Neville's robes. "Just try and push with your legs—"

He gave another stupendous heave and Neville's robes tore all along the left seam. The small spun-glass ball dropped from his pocket and, before either of them could catch it, one of Neville's floundering feet kicked it: it flew some ten feet to their right and Harry was certain it was going to smash against the step. But then:

"Accio prophecy!"

Millimetres from collision, the little glass sphere arced gracefully upward, over the furor of the battle, and landed in the upraised hand of a gleeful Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Harry, I'b sorry!" cried Neville, his face anguished, blood still streaming from his broken nose. His legs continued to flounder. "I'b so sorry, Harry, I didn'd bean do—"

Pausing only to aim one final curse at Sirius, Bellatrix turned on her heel and bolted up the stone steps opposite. As the hem of her cloak whipped out of sight, Malfoy yelled, "We have the prophecy! Kill these fools and let us be gone!"

Before Malfoy could finish speaking, however, the door to the Brain Room flew open to reveal Albus Dumbledore, his wand aloft, his face white and furious. Dumbledore's spell effortlessly pulled all of the Death Eaters together at the foot of the dais, where they sat unmoving.

Harry hadn't stayed to watch. The moment Dumbledore had appeared, Harry had left Neville's side and sprinted after Bellatrix. Lupin, who had been crouched on the dais beside a feebly-stirring Sirius, tried to intercept him, but Harry evaded him and pounded up the steps. He shouldered through the door that Bellatrix had gone through, streaked across circular black hall of the Department of Mysteries before any of the doors could close, and saw Bellatrix disappearing into a lift at the far end of the long corridor.

Moments later, Harry was in his own lift, hammering the Atrium button. He forced his way out of the lift before the grilles were fully open, wand outstretched, and yelled, "STUPEFY!".

Bellatrix, feet from the telephone box-lift that would allow her to escape the Ministry and disapparate, was forced to dodge aside. She whirled and pointed her wand at Harry.

Harry flung himself behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren to avoid the curse, covering his head in his hands as the golden centaur's arm and bow were sent spinning into the air by the force of her spell.

"Too late, too slow!" she jeered in her mock-baby voice. "Come out and play, little Harry!" Harry heard her edging back toward the phone box, and he shot another Stunning spell, forcing her to move away again.

This time, she stumbled, and before she could recover, Harry thought of all the pain he knew she had caused, and rage seized him. He straightened up, pointed his wand at her, and yelled, "Crucio!"

Bellatrix screamed. She fell to her knees, but almost immediately bounded back to her feet. "Pathetic!" she yelled, dropping the baby voice and apparently forgetting all about her planned escape. "Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy? You have to mean them. Let me show you!" Before Harry could drop back behind the fountain, she too had cried, "Crucio!"

Pain ripped through Harry's body, and he crumpled sideways to the floor. The top half of his body was exposed from behind the fountain, and Bellatrix kept her wand on him. The pain was incredible; he felt as if his bones had been filled with liquid fire. He was twitching, and he dimly felt his breathing start to fail and his mind begin to come apart. It was too much, too much and he was going to go mad under Bellatrix's wand just like Neville's parents.

Then, just as Harry thought that the pain could not get any worse, he felt his scar begin to burn, and somehow it cleared away the other aches. He felt a surge of triumph that was not his own, and he opened his streaming eyes to see Voldemort standing with a hand on Bellatrix's shoulder. She had fallen to her knees, holding up the prophecy to her Master as though in supplication. He took it in his pale, long-fingered hand.

"At last…" Voldemort hissed. "At last I will know the truth."

"Master," Bellatrix whispered, "Master, you should know—he is here—he is below…"

But Voldemort ignored her, his snakelike face rapturous as he stared at the prophecy he held in his long, white fingers. He turned toward Harry.

"And yet, now it seems as if the knowledge will prove unnecessary, for here you are in front of me, Potter. Avada kedavra!"

Harry struggled to move, to force his aching muscles into cooperation before it was too late, when he found himself sliding backwards. Voldemort's emerald-green curse hit the ground uselessly where Harry had been lying as Harry himself slid to a stop beside the lifts.

"What?" Voldemort shrieked. Then he said, in barely more than a whisper, "Dumbledore!"

The grille of the lift Harry lay in front of opened, and Dumbledore stepped carefully past him.

"It is too late, you doddering old fool!" Voldemort cackled, "The prophecy is mine!"

"It was foolish of you, to come here tonight, Tom," said Dumbledore calmly. "The Aurors are on their way."

"By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!" Voldemort spat.

Harry struggled to his feet and fired a Stunning spell at Voldemort. Voldemort vanished and reappeared on the other side of the partially-destroyed fountain. Dumbledore pointed his wand at the statues in the fountain, which burst into life and scattered. The witch and the goblin charged at Bellatrix, while the wizard and the centaur launched themselves toward Voldemort, trying to grab them and pull them to the floor. The house-elf statue scuttled to the side, away from the battle, and Harry lost sight of it.

Harry raised his wand again, and looked straight into Voldemort's red eyes. Before Harry could cast another spell, however, his forehead exploded with agony, and he collapsed. The pain was somehow even worse than Bellatrix's Cruciatus Curse had ever been, so terrible it blinded him, so hideous he barely noticed the cold floor against his skin, and through the pain, Harry felt his lips form words as Voldemort spoke through his mouth.

"Here I am, Dumbledore. Kill me. Kill me, if you have the nerve, and it can all be over."

It was too much, Harry couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't feel anything except pain that was so all-consuming he could not remember anything else, and in that moment Harry would have welcomed death; would have greeted death like an old friend who had come to take him to see his parents again…

As Harry that thought settled in Harry's mind, the feeling of the pain changed. The agony was no less at first, but it now felt wistful and almost bittersweet. Then he heard a high-pitched scream, and the pain began to recede. He could feel the wooden floor again, could hear the noises of people. Too many people. What had happened?

"Harry?"

Harry's vision cleared and Dumbledore's long, crooked nose swam into focus. He blinked, and tried to focus on his headmaster's eyes.

"Are you all right?" Dumbledore inquired.

"Yes," Harry tried to say, but he was shaking so badly he couldn't get up. "What happened, sir? Where's Voldemort?" His head fell to one side, and he saw that Floos were open all along the walls of the atrium. The little golden statue of the house elf was leading Cornelius Fudge toward them.

"He was there!" shouted a man with a ponytail, the sleeve of his emerald robes trembling as he pointing toward several piles of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, one marking where Voldemort had stood against the wizard's and centaur's charge, the other where Bellatrix had lain trapped only moments before. "I saw him, Mr Fudge, I swear it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!"

"I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!" gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pyjamas under his pinstriped cloak and was panting as though he had just run miles. "Merlin's beard—here!—in the Ministry of Magic! Great heavens above! It doesn't seem possible. My word—how can this be?"

"If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius," said Dumbledore quietly, standing up and walking forward so that the newcomers realised he was there for the first time. A few of them raised their wands; others simply looked amazed. "You will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparation Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them."

"Dumbledore!" gasped Fudge, beside himself with amazement. "You—what are you doing—?"

He looked wildly around at the Aurors he had brought with him and it could not have been clearer that he was in half a mind to cry, "Seize him!"

"Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men _and win again!_" Dumbledore thundered. "But just a moment ago you saw proof with your own eyes that I have been telling you the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned. You have been chasing the wrong men for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!"

"I—don't—well—" blustered Fudge, looking around as though hoping somebody was going to tell him what to do. When nobody did, he snapped, "Very well. Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the Department of Mysteries and see… Dumbledore, you will need to tell me exactly…" his voice trailed off as he stared around at the floor, where the remains of the statues of the witch, wizard, goblin, and centaur were now scattered. The demand ended as a whimpered question. "…What happened?"

"We can discuss that after I have sent Harry back to Hogwarts," said Dumbledore, turning back toward Harry, who was still lying on the floor.

"Harry—Harry Potter?"

Fudge wheeled around and stared at Harry, whom he had apparently just noticed.

"He—here?" said Fudge, goggling. "Why—what's all this about?"

"I shall explain everything," repeated Dumbledore, "when Harry is back at school."

He walked away from the pool to the place where the golden wizard's head lay on the floor after Voldemort had blasted it off. He pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Portus." The head glowed blue and trembled noisily against the wooden floor for a few seconds, then became still once more.

"Now see here, Dumbledore! You haven't got authorisation for that Portk—" Fudge trailed off at Dumbledore's look.

After a moment, Dumbledore turned back to Harry and handed him the golden head. Harry took it. "This will take you back to my office in thirty seconds, Harry. I shall see you there in half an hour, at most."

Harry held the Portkey, still unable to get up, as Dumbledore addressed Fudge again with a list of demands, including Umbridge's removal and Hagrid's return, but his attention was already drifting when he felt the familiar tug behind his navel, and the Atrium had vanished in a whirlwind of noise and colour.


	2. The Battle of Hogwarts

_2 May 1998_

Harry lay facedown on the ground again, with Dumbledore's last words ringing in his ears. "_Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?_"

The smell of pine needles filled his nostrils, and he could feel the cold ground beneath his cheek. The hinge of his glasses, which had been knocked sideways when he collapsed, cut into his temple. Every inch of him ached. The place where Killing Curse had hit him felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch, and he could not move at all. He could hear footsteps and whispers from the direction where Voldemort had stood to curse him, and he heard as well Bellatrix nearly moaning over Voldemort, until a high voice cut across her.

"I do not require assistance. The boy...is he dead?"

Harry began to panic as the attention of everyone in the clearing focused on him, and when Voldemort sent Narcissa Malfoy to examine him, he thought he must surely be discovered, but he still couldn't move his body. She rolled him over, and he found that he could move only his eyes. She felt his chest, and he knew his heart did not beat. She held fingers before his mouth, and he knew no breath passed his lips. But then she gazed into his eyes, and he knew she saw life in them.

"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?" she asked, in a whisper so faint, even Harry almost could not hear her. "Raise your eyes if he is, and keep them there so they do not see."

Last Harry had seen, Draco was incapacitated, but safe within Hogwarts' walls. He obediently rolled his eyes upward behind his unmoving lids. He heard Narcissa exhale with relief, then cry out "He is dead!" The Death Eaters roared with triumph in response.

"You see?" Voldemort shrieked. "I have killed Harry Potter, and now I am truly invincible! _Crucio_!" Harry's body was flung into the air by the force of Voldemort's curse, but the expected pain did not come. He felt nothing at all, and he still could not move his limbs or make himself breathe as his body thudded back to the ground.

Voldemort arranged a procession, with Nagini twined around his neck and Hagrid shuffling behind him carrying Harry's body. The Death Eaters marched back toward the castle in triumph. Voldemort magnified his voice and called ahead, "Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.

"The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters, my Death Eaters outnumber you, the Order of the Phoenix is all but gone, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, along with every member of their families. Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. The time has come to establish a new order under Lord Voldemort.

"Now, Hagrid, lay the body here at my feet where he belongs. _Mobilicorpus!_" Harry felt himself rise off the ground, hovering limply. His body still would not move, and his head lolled forward. Voldemort made no attempt to correct this, and each time he gestured with his wand, Harry's body would soar in that direction before jerking to a halt, like a grotesque puppet.

As the Death Eaters approached the castle, the defenders of Hogwarts came out onto the grounds to face them. Harry heard Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and McGonagall all cry, "NO!" at the sight of him. He wished he could call out to them, reassure them somehow that all was not yet lost, but he still could not move. Worse, even if he could move, motion from him would draw the Death Eaters' attention as well. Still, being paralyzed frayed his nerves, and he began to wish that he were still unconscious instead of in this strange in-between state.

The defenders roared and jeered at the Death Eaters, and Harry saw Sirius start to raise his wand. Voldemort waved the Elder Wand and cast a Silencing Charm. Into the sudden, enforced quiet, he screeched, "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"

Then Ron yelled back, "He beat you!" and the spell broke. Shouts rose again, and Voldemort tried to silence the crowd by magic for a second time, but to no avail. The crowd began to push forward, and Harry saw that Neville was out in front, his wand outstretched, with the remaining members of Dumbledore's Army ranged behind him.

"Enough!" Voldemort screeched, and with another flick of the Elder Wand he silenced the crowd again and paralyzed Neville. "You, here, who led them. Who are you?"

Bellatrix cackled, "It is Neville Longbottom, the son of the Aurors! The boy who has been giving Snape and the Carrows so much trouble!"

"Ah, yes, I remember," said Voldemort. "Will you persist in your folly, Neville Longbottom? Or will you stand forth and join the ranks of my Death Eaters. You are a pureblood; to kill you would be such a waste…"

His voice trailed off, leaving no one in any doubt that no matter what he said, he cared nothing one way or the other. Yet another flick of the Elder Wand, and the Sorting Hat came soaring out of the window of the Headmaster's study to land in Voldemort's outstretched hand. He forced the Hat onto Neville's head.

Then he shrieked, "Soon, you will see the fate of those who oppose Lord Voldemort! You, Neville Longbottom, can choose to join me, or become an example of what will happen to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost.

"I shall place Harry Potter's body in the marble tomb with that of your old hero Dumbledore, and destroy them both! You will have no more heroes, symbols, or martyrs!"

As he spoke, Harry's body floated over toward the tomb. Harry, still quite frozen, could only stare down in horror at the rent in the marble casing where Voldemort must have retrieved the Elder Wand.

Neville, visibly fighting the Body Bind curse cast on him, bellowed in Voldemort's face, "I'll join you when hell freezes over!" He wrenched his arm upward, pointed his wand straight up, and shot a shower of silver sparks into the air. "Dumbledore's Army!"

The surrounding crowd sent their own sparks to join his with a deafening cheer. Voldemort's mouth twisted in fury. He jabbed his wand at Neville, and caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames.

The rest of Dumbledore's Army surged forward, and the Death Eaters raised their wands in response. Neville, still a mere foot away from Voldemort, tore free of the Body Bind Curse entirely, swept the burning hat off his head, reached inside, and pulled out something with a shining silver blade and a glitter of red at the handle.

Gryffindor's sword swung with a great slash in Neville's hands: out of the hat, directly toward Voldemort as if trying to take off the Dark Lord's head. Voldemort jerked backward in surprise, causing Harry to move safely away from the blade's arc, and at the same time, Nagini reared back to strike at Neville. The sword passed through the thick snake's neck with no resistance, and it thudded to the ground in two pieces.

Voldemort screamed in fury, pointing his wand at Neville, but Neville parried the Killing Curse with the blade. The metal shuddered angrily, and there was a loud, clear note like a bell, but the moment Voldemort's attention was divided, Harry started to sink from where he was floating in the air over the tomb, down toward the jagged hole in the stone. Terror seized him, but nobody was paying any attention to what they thought was his lifeless body as the battle began to rage anew.

Sirius aimed a curse at Lucius Malfoy, who ducked and flung away his wand. He took Narcissa by the hand and they sprinted away from the killing field shouting, "Draco!"

Kingsley and McGonagall leapt forward at once to back up Neville. Hermione and Ginny both fired hexes at Dolohov. Hagrid, still in the midst of the Death Eaters, reached down and lifted McNair bodily, then flung him against the castle wall. He fell to the ground limp, and did not get back up. Percy cursed Rookwood so thoroughly that all his joints bent the wrong way. Behind Percy, George and Lee Jordan leapt forward as one, and slammed Yaxley and Selwyn to the ground. Flitwick, who had hurtled to the top of the castle steps, stood in a loose ring with several Hufflepuff students, to prevent the werewolves led by Greyback from dashing into the Great Hall where they could attack the injured.

And at the center of it all, Voldemort duelled three opponents at once: Sirius, Kingsley, and McGonagall. All of them were fighting their hardest, but Voldemort was equal to all of them. Right next to them, Bellatrix stood face-to-face with none other than Molly Weasley. Bellatrix at first let out a cackle of mad laughter at the sight of her plump, middle-aged challenger, but at the first swipe of Molly's wand, Bellatrix's smile twisted into a snarl. Jets of light flew from both wands, and patches of flame erupted from the ground around their feet.

"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" Bellatrix taunted, leaping over a jet of light that left a metre-long gouge in the dirt behind her.

"You will never—_never!_—touch our children again!" Molly screamed. Bellatrix started to laugh again, but the sound cut off in a wet, strangled gasp. Molly's second curse had not missed, and Harry could see Mrs. Weasley's livid face _through_ the bloody ruin of what had been Bellatrix's chest, before the body collapsed.

Voldemort screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the thunderous roar of an oncoming crowd larger than either the Hogwarts Defenders or the Death Eaters. Harry's last sight as his eyes slipped at last into the marble tomb was Charlie Weasley and Horace Slughorn leading a crowd of hundreds toward the battle.

As he slipped down into darkness, he heard Voldemort shriek "To me, my Death Eaters!" in a magnified voice, but the stone walls of the tomb sheltered him from the sound and sights. The noises of the battle faded away, and it seemed that the light visible through the cracked tomb was receding, and the stench of death rose up around him.


	3. The Return

When Harry came to, some time later, he panicked immediately from claustrophobia and the gagging stench of decay. Flailing, he scraped his hand on the broken rock hard enough to draw blood. Finally, he grasped the edge and shakily heaved himself up out of the tomb and into the night air. He tumbled to the ground and lay there, feeling the lump of the invisibility cloak still bundled under his robes with the wand he had taken from Draco, that night at Malfoy Manor.

Harry gathered himself slowly, pulled out the invisibility cloak, and drew it over himself. He replaced the wand—which was now rightfully his—in its accustomed place up his sleeve. It was an inch shorter than his own Holly wand, but it always felt strangely welcoming to his touch, if not quite familiar.

Everything was very quiet. Moving slowly so that the cloak would not flap around his ankles, Harry started to make his way across the grounds. It was a charnel scene, the turf upturned by many feet to reveal dirt, and the dirt soaked through with tears, sweat, and blood. Harry skirted the place where Bellatrix's body lay, and after examining another body that proved to be the Death Eater Scabior, he realized that the only bodies left outside were Death Eaters.

That meant that whatever else had happened, the Death Eaters must have been driven back to leave their fallen behind. Hogwarts, then, must have stood. With that, Harry made his way toward the front doors, where he had last seen Flitwick make his stand. The steps were slick with blood and littered with bodies, some of which were partly in wolf-shape. That didn't make sense, Harry thought, glancing up. It was only a quarter-moon tonight. Something he would need to ask Hermione. Harry's breath caught as he realized that he didn't know whether Hermione would be able to answer; didn't know if she was even… He refused to complete the thought, but strode into the Entrance Hall.

He heard low voices immediately, through the open doors of the Great Hall to his left. Harry stopped in the doorway, and saw that the House Tables had been set up and food had been served, but that each table was filled by students and adults of every House and description. Neville sat at the Hufflepuff table next to Hannah Abbott, the Sword of Gryffindor on the table in front of him. He also saw Narcissa and Draco Malfoy sitting near the door, at the near end of the Ravenclaw table, both looking very uncertain about whether they should be there.

His eyes were drawn, however, to the raised dais where the staff table normally stood. Madam Pomfrey stood at one end, bent over the broken and trembling figure of Anthony Goldstein. Starting in the middle of the dais, however, there was a long row of shapes that were not moving; and grouped around the far end, there stood a small crowd of people with flaming red hair.

Harry couldn't face it, not yet; he needed quiet, he needed to think. He walked up the marble staircase, and kept the cloak on until he reached the second floor of the Headmaster's Tower, and only paused when he found himself in front of the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the headmaster's office.

The gargoyle looked very much worse for the wear after the battle. It leaned against the wall of the alcove where it usually stood, one of its arms was missing, its eyes seemed to be squinted shut in pain, and the wall behind it was open to reveal the spiral staircase leading up to the office.

"Er, can I go up?" he asked the gargoyle.

"Go ahead," the gargoyle grunted, not even bothering to look at him.

Harry climbed carefully past it and walked up the spiral staircase, which did not move like it usually did. Most of the portraits around the walls were empty, presumably down in the Great Hall to commiserate with the rest of the survivors, but directly behind the headmaster's desk, Albus Dumbledore stood in his frame. Dumbledore looked up as the door opened, and when he saw nobody there, his mouth opened a little, as if he was hesitant to speak. Then he asked quietly, "Harry?"

Harry's anger toward Dumbledore had mostly faded since the events of that misty, illusory King's Cross, and the hopeless way that Dumbledore said his name wiped away what little remained of Harry's ill will.

"I'm here, Professor," Harry said, removing the invisibility cloak at last. Dumbledore's smile was tremulous, and his eyes sparkled with tears rather than their usual knowing twinkle.

"I am so very delighted to hear it, Harry. We all heard Voldemort announce your death, and we heard the battle recommence, but I had expected you to make your reappearance immediately and challenge Voldemort once and for all. When you did not, and the Death Eaters fled, I began to fear that I had erred in my guesswork, and that you truly were lost to us."

"I don't know what happened, sir," Harry confessed. Voldemort cursed me like you planned, but I ended up...someplace else. And I saw you there, sir." As he spoke, he crossed to the headmaster's desk, where the Pensieve still sat. He pulled back the headmaster's chair, turned it so that he could see Dumbledore's portrait, and sat down.

"Saw me?" Dumbledore asked. "After you were hit by the curse, Harry?"

"Yes, sir. You spoke to me; it seemed like a very long time. You told me a lot of things that I had already sort of guessed up to that point, and you begged my forgiveness."

Dumbledore looked grave and ashamed, "I certainly hope that I did. I will not ask your reply. What else happened, Harry?"

"I asked you where we were, but you told me that I had the answer. And I did: it looked like King's Cross Station. You told me that I had a choice, to either come back and face Voldemort, or to 'board a train' and move on."

"And, in making that choice, Harry, you have proved yourself a better man than ever I was."

Harry allowed himself a small smile. "You said something like that, too, sir."

Dumbledore chuckled, in spite of himself, it seemed to Harry. "Yes, well… What happened when you woke up, Harry?"

"I was back, but I couldn't move anything except my eyes. Voldemort brought me back to the front of the castle and tried to use my body to make our side surrender, but of course, they didn't. Then put my body into your tomb, sir; I think he was going to destroy it and both of us.

"But Neville pulled the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat, and used it to kill Nagini. Everyone started fighting, and I saw reinforcements arrive for our side, but then I passed out. When I woke up again, I was finally able to move, and I came up here."

Dumbledore looked very solemnly at Harry. "Voldemort knows now, or he will very soon, that even the Horcrux he thought we could never find is gone, and that he himself is fully mortal for the first time in half a century.

"Tonight may very well have been our best chance to finish him once and for all. I confess, I had envisioned that by the time you went to face him, all of the Horcruxes would be destroyed, and that he would either die upon trying to kill you, or that you would kill him thereafter.

"I do not blame you, and you should not blame yourself; this inability to move upon returning to your body was unexpected and could not have been foreseen. However, the fact remains that Voldemort and his Death Eaters have fled.

"For now, at least, he still believes you are dead, and it may be in our best interest to harbour that impression for a while." But Harry was already shaking his head. Dumbledore tried to reason with him, "Harry, it may grant us the element of surprise we need to finish him…"

Harry interrupted, "Yes, sir, it might. But I think it would boost morale for our side a lot more to know that I'm back, don't you?"

Dumbledore thought it over for a moment, then nodded. "Perhaps so. You understand, though, what you are risking by surrendering this tactical advantage? Once Voldemort realizes you are still alive, it probably will not be long before he goes underground."

"Maybe that will stop some of the random acts of violence," Harry said, but Dumbledore contradicted him at once.

"On the contrary, Harry, it will probably make them come more frequently as he attempts to draw you out. Realizing that you have survived the Killing Curse for a second time will infuriate and terrify him, and he will redouble his efforts to find you and kill you, while at the same time refusing to expose himself to you. By contrast, though, his confidence will be badly shaken if he ever faces you again."

"You mean 'when' he faces me again, sir. There's no backing down, or running away. Not anymore. I'm not sure there ever was."

Dumbledore's eyes were swimming with tears again at Harry's words. At length, he said, "How are you planning to reveal yourself, then, Harry?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but froze. There were cautious footsteps on the stairs leading up to the office, and he heard unidentifiable voices whispering.

"...definitely heard someone talking up there," someone hissed.

"It's probably just the portraits," replied another, slightly higher voice. "Who else would be up here?"

"Should _we_ even be here?"

"I've told you, who is there to stop us anymore? Nobody will be up here, and I can't stand to be around anybody else right now."

The whispers were right outside the door now. Harry reached for his invisibility cloak, but too late; the door swung open, and the air was rent by a scream.

"_HARRY!_"

Before Harry could react or process what had happened, he had been yanked out of the chair and was being crushed between two sobbing figures. Gasping for breath, Harry managed to wrap an arm around Ron and Hermione and pull them tight against him.

Both of them were babbling.

"How did you—"

"You were—"

"What was—"

"We saw—"

"Voldemort cursed me," Harry said shortly. "I went away for a while, and now I'm back. Good enough?"

Ron simply nodded, beaming. Hermione, predictably, opened her mouth to start asking questions, but Ron nudged her. Amazingly, she paused, and apparently changed what she was going to say.

"What are we going to tell people? How are we going to tell people? I know you, Harry, you don't want to go down to the Great Hall, do you? But people need to know; we need to tell Neville and Luna and Ginny and Sirius…"

"Why don't you go and get Sirius, Hermione?" said Ron. "Maybe you can figure out some way to slip a note to Neville and Luna, or… No, wait! Just send it to them on their D.A. galleons! Do that after you come back with Sirius though."

Hermione nodded, and hurried out of the office again. Harry turned to Ron.

"Did you just tell her what to do?"

Ron shrugged, looking self-conscious. "It's like chess, mate. Once you know what the pieces want to do, you just have to let them do it when it fits the strategy."

Harry sat back down, and Ron sat across from him. The silence was comfortable; neither was quite willing to talk, and neither wanted to press the other. In a few minutes, there was motion from the stairwell again, and Harry heard Sirius' voice.

"C'mon, Hermione, I've followed you this far. What's this all about?" he said dully, as though all the life and enthusiasm had been sucked out of him.

Rather than answer, Hermione burst into the room ahead of him and took the seat next to Ron before Sirius could even finish coming up the stairs. When he did, he froze in the doorway, staring at his godson.

"Harry…" he said, huskily. And Harry, who throughout his reunion with Dumbledore, Ron, and Hermione, had managed to remain relatively calm, now found his own eyes beginning to sting as he looked up at the man who was like a father and a brother and a comrade and a friend all at once.

Harry couldn't think what to say, except, "I saw them, Sirius. The rest of the Marauders. My dad told me to remind you to try to be a little less flighty. Wormtail said that you were right all along, and that he should have remembered that the best times in his life were when he had you to look up to. Moony asked you to take care of Teddy, the way you should have been allowed to take care of me."

As he spoke, Sirius' own eyes filled with tears. He sank to his knees, nodding silently, and wept for his lost brothers. Thinking of that led Harry to thoughts not only of Lupin, but of Tonks, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Ernie Macmillan, and everyone else who had given their lives tonight.

Dumbledore's portrait cleared its throat. He had been respectfully quiet during the reunion, and had joined them openly in their grief. Now he directed Sirius to a cabinet beside his frame, and soon they each had a glass of goblin-made brandy.

Harry opened his mouth to ask how Sirius thought he should make his reappearance, when he heard furtive movement again on the stairs. He drew his wand, and the door flew open to reveal Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was not skulking, but glaring at Harry with nearly as much animosity as ever. And yet, Harry thought, there was something more to it, something only visible in the lines on Malfoy's face, the shadows under his eyes, the haunted expression he had never worn during his time as the Pureblood Prince of Slytherin.

Ron leapt to his feet, pulling out his wand too, but Harry said, "No, Ron." He shared a glance with Dumbledore's portrait, then met Malfoy's gaze squarely. "Can I help you, Draco?"

"Funnily enough, you can, _Potter_." Malfoy's pointed use of Harry's surname was expected. "That's still my wand you're pointing at me."

"Told you, Draco, 'finders keepers'," Harry smirked, knowing that using his first name would continue to incense him.

Draco didn't rise. "_I_ told _you_, Potter; the wand I was using tonight was my mother's. Your Order of the Phoenix confiscated it, and when they returned it they returned it to her. I want _my_ wand back. Or are you afraid of what I might do to you like this?" Draco raised his arms, and as his robes shifted, the rest of them saw for the first time that Draco was handcuffed, and that his shirt was drenched in fresh blood.

Hermione stepped forward, her hand already rummaging in her beaded handbag. "If you come here, I've got some dittany that will take care of whatever's wrong until the healers can take a look at-"

"This isn't my blood, Granger," Malfoy spat. "It's…" but he seemed to choke up, and obviously changed what he was going to say. "It was meant for me though. It's from a spell cast by one of _yours_ after the battle."

Harry, for his part, looked at Malfoy for a long moment. True, the wand in his hand was Draco's, but Harry had won it in a duel, meaning that it would obey him. His own wand was still irreparably broken. He didn't know what he would do without Draco's wand, and yet…

He met Draco's eyes, and realized that they exactly matched his mother's. Narcissa had lied to Voldemort in exchange for Harry's word that Draco was alive. Draco had said that her wand was confiscated and returned to her, so she must still be in the castle. Lucius would obviously have gone with Voldemort, but Draco was here. Why? To retrieve his wand? Maybe, but why would he ask in a way that was, by Malfoy's standards, perfectly civil?

"You're staying here, aren't you?" Harry asked. Malfoy said nothing, but Harry could see the answer in his eyes. "You remembered what Dumbledore told you last year, didn't you? We can hide your family. You can fight for the right side."

Ron choked. "What!?"

Harry ignored him. He stared at Malfoy for a moment longer, then crossed the room. Without any ceremony, he held Malfoy's wand out on the palm of his left hand, and extended his right. Malfoy's lip twitched, but then he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He grasped Harry's hand, and for the first time after seven years of near-constant animosity, they shook.


	4. Détente

"I'm tired of this feud, Potter," Malfoy sighed, letting out the breath he had taken. "You win. I'll end this if you do."

Harry sighed in return. "I agree. There are more important matters to worry about than things said and done when we were eleven."

"Then you have my word."

Harry extended his left hand instead. Malfoy took his wand back from Harry and left without another word.

Ron was still sputtering. "Harry...why...you don't..."

"We have a new ally in the fight against Voldemort, Ron." But Ron still looked flabbergasted. Harry thought for a moment, trying to come up with an explanation Ron would accept. "A pawn moved to the goal row and now we have a much stronger piece. See?"

"I...I guess so, mate, but how do you know you can trust him?"

"Because he may be a pompous, nasty, bullying, prejudiced, self-righteous git...but he's not a liar. He gave his word and he'll keep it."

"But what are you going to do now?" Ron persisted. "Your wand is still broken. Ollivander said it couldn't be repaired, and You-Know-Who still has the Elder Wand!"

Sirius gasped at the mention of the legendary weapon, but Harry continued.

"Yeah, but I figured something out tonight. Remember in the Shrieking Shack, we heard Voldemort complaining that the wand wasn't working right? He thought he could make it work by killing Snape, but we know from Ollivander that's not how wands are passed on. Snape was never the master of the wand, because he was working for Dumbledore the whole time. Dumbledore should have died undefeated, but it didn't work, because somebody disarmed Dumbledore before Snape arrived on the tower last year."

Hermione gasped. "You mean...Malfoy?"

Harry nodded. "Exactly. So, when I beat Malfoy a few weeks ago..."

This time, it was Sirius who cut in. "Then, _you're_ the master of the Elder Wand?" he asked weakly.

"Assuming we can get it away from Voldemort. Right, Professor?" Harry answered, looking at Dumbledore's portrait.

"I can find no flaw in your reasoning, Harry. In fact, it would go a long way toward explaining what happened to you tonight."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"When Harry entered the Forbidden Forest tonight, he was not only the true owner of the Elder Wand and his own Invisibility Cloak, but also briefly the possessor of the Resurrection Stone that was once set in the Ring of Gaunt." Dumbledore's portrait explained. "In other words, one could say that according to the legends, Harry was-"

"Master of Death!" Hermione gasped. Sirius' face was white, and Ron looked thunderstruck.

Harry didn't like the sound of that very much, so instead he said, "The Stone let me get past the Dementors in the forest. That's when I saw my mum, and the Marauders."

"So what are you going to do about a wand, Harry?" Ron persisted.

"Perhaps I can offer a solution," Dumbledore cut in, smiling magisterially down at them all. "Come here, Harry."

Harry crossed the room slowly, and Dumbledore's portrait swung forward suddenly on hinges to reveal a hidden space. Harry knew from Snape's memories that the Sword of Gryffindor had been concealed there once, before Snape had left it for Harry, Ron, and Hermione to find, but the sword was downstairs now. Harry looked inside the secret space curiously, and found a small, narrow box. He pulled it out and sat down, recognizing an Ollivander's case, but not the inlaid signature. It didn't match the one on his own wand case, which had been signed by Mr. Ollivander when Harry bought his wand just after his eleventh birthday.

At Dumbledore's painted nod, he opened the case, and found a polished wand of dark wood.

"What's this, sir?" Harry asked, as Dumbledore swung closed again.

"That, Harry, is a wand which has not been used for more than fifty years, ever since I tamed the Elder Wand in 1945."

Sirius jerked his head to look at Dumbledore. "You mean...that's..._your wand_, Albus?"

With a small smile, Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, indeed. I purchased it myself, at the age of eleven, from Gerbold Ollivander, in 1892. Though I set it aside when I gained possession of the Elder Wand from Grindelwald, this wand always served me faithfully. Judging by its composition, I think that it will do the same for you."

"What do you mean by 'its composition', professor?" Hermione asked.

"I do not pretend to be an expert on wandlore," Dumbledore replied, spreading his hands. "But Gerbold said as much when I purchased it from him."

"What's it made of, sir?" Harry asked, still staring at the dark wand.

"Fir," Dumbledore replied, "and Dragon heartstring. You see, there is a story in the Ollivander family-and I expect Garrick would be able to tell you in better detail than I-that Gerbold only ever sold three wands made of fir in his life...but that each of those three wizards later passed safely through mortal peril. For that reason, the Ollivander family refers to fir wands as 'the Survivor's wand'. I think it rather apropos for Harry, don't you agree?" He smiled gently, and they all returned it rather weakly. Sirius shook his head.

"Only you, Harry, could walk to your death, converse with those who have passed on, and then bounce right back." His godfather's eyes were full of tears again, and Harry realized that without him, Sirius would have been left all alone in the world.

He moved over to Sirius, intending to put a hand on his shoulder, but Sirius grabbed him and hugged him roughly, before straightening up with his hands on Harry's shoulders. They were almost of a height, and Sirius looked into Harry's eyes very seriously.

There was no trace of his characteristic humour in his voice as he said, "You deserve the rest, Harry, after what you've been through. Especially this year." Harry's eyes suddenly burned with unshed tears, and his throat constricted with he didn't know what emotion. "I expect you three are going to head off on your own again?"

"We're going to have to," Harry replied. "If we stay here, it will make Hogwarts even more of a target."

"I agree," Sirius cut in. Harry was astonished at first by the simple agreement. Then he wondered if Sirius was going to demand to go along with them. He immediately began marshaling his arguments against it, but when Sirius continued, he said nothing of the sort. "If Voldemort goes underground, the reign of terror will only get worse. Hogwarts needs to be a haven. We'll get started on rebuilding right away, and make this headquarters."

"But won't it be dangerous for You-Kn-...I mean, for Voldemort to know exactly where everyone is?"

"I didn't say we were going to advertise it," Sirius replied. "But we need somewhere defencible to bring refugees, and Hogwarts fits the bill. Voldemort used up most of his strength besieging the castle tonight; if he tries to do it again, even our weakened defenders will be able to hold him back.

"But," Sirius went on, "That's neither here nor there for you three. It's time you all took a more active role in the Order of the Phoenix, and...what did you decide to call it? Dumbledore's Army?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm not in charge of that anymore. It's Neville who's running them now."

"Yes, Frank and Alice's son. He's got his father's build, but damn if he doesn't look just like his mother." Sirius shook his head to break his own reverie, and continued, "I've had a word with this DA, and while I heard some grumbling about how you'd been gone all year, I also heard that they still consider you their Commander-In-Chief. If you want to leave Neville in charge of day-to-day command, fine, but those kids need to see you, Harry. A lot of them laid down their lives tonight. Don't ask the rest of them to die for a stranger."

Harry's stomach clenched. "I didn't want any of them to die for me!" he shouted, but Sirius held up a hand to head him off.

"Do you think James would have wanted me to die for him? Of course not. But that doesn't change the fact that I would have done it in an instant.

"This isn't about what you _want_, Harry, it's about what you mean to people. You're 'The Boy Who Lived' all over again, and this time you weren't just a baby. Like it or not, you're a symbol of this resistance to Voldemort's pureblood supremacy. The wizarding world is slipping into darkness, and you need to be there to be its light.

"Most people still see me as a conflict. Dumbledore is gone. There's no one else left who can reach out to as many people as you, Harry. It's up to you to take up the banner and do the right thing."

Harry sighed. "At least I can use my celebrity for something good, this time." He turned to Hermione. "Did you tell Neville and Luna yet, Hermione?"

"Yes, of course. They're both taking care of others at the moment, though."

"I'll need Neville, at least, up here. I'd like to see Luna as well, but maybe you should ask her to look after Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys…"

Ron cut in, "Harry, you don't want to keep from Ginny that you're okay. She'll hex you so bad you'll wish you were dueling Voldemort again."

Harry hesitated, then nodded. "Have Luna bring her up, then, if she can extricate her from the rest of the family. I want to have a plan worked out before I go back down to the Great Hall."

Hermione pulled the DA Galleon out of her pocket again, and Harry turned to Sirius. "I want to talk to Kingsley as well, assuming he survived. Oh, and Professor Slughorn too, if you can find him. Send them up here; I'll need their help coming up with that plan. Try to be discreet."

Sirius blinked at him in surprise, then let out a chuckle that was almost his old bark-like laugh. "Harry, when have you ever known me to be less than discreet?" Rather than wait for an answer, he bounded to his feet, transformed into an enormous black dog, and bounded out the door.

Hermione was still staring intently at the fake galleon. "Neville says he'll come, Harry, but he's looking in on someone right now. Luna didn't send an actual reply, but she warmed up the galleon to show that she got the message."

"Why are you bringing those particular people, Harry? Why here?" Ron asked.

"I think it's obvious why I want you two here. Same goes for Ginny. Neville is in charge of the DA these days, whatever Sirius says, so he knows what they're capable of far more than I do. I expect Luna will give us a perspective we'd never consider otherwise. Kingsley is the best auror in years, and Slughorn is both clever and well-connected. Here, because this is where Dumbledore's portrait is, and I'll want his input as well."

Ron looked very thoughtful at that. Hermione stood up and, at Dumbledore's urging, began to examine the books on his shelves. Harry leaned back into the chair and shut his eyes.

* * *

Ginny arrived first. She was several minutes ahead of Luna, having sprinted the entire way. She flung herself into Harry's lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. Both of them ignored Ron's sputtering, and the yelp he let out when Hermione kicked him sharply in the shin. Harry, for his part, just held her against him, feeling the tension in her back, taking in the smell of her hair and the feeling of her tears soaking the shoulder of his robes. He wouldn't give her up for anything, he vowed silently. Never, ever again.

Luna, for her part, merely sat quietly in a chair Hermione conjured for her. Kingsley, who appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, merely nodded respectfully to Harry, and sat down beside Luna.

Less than a minute later, they heard heavy, tired footfalls on the stairs, and Neville came in. He looked equal parts exhausted and furious, and refused the chair Hermione indicated. He stood beside the door, his hands folded on the Sword of Gryffindor resting point-down between his feet, and glared at Dumbledore's portrait.

Before Harry could ask what that was about, Sirius returned with Slughorn in tow, but the two of them weren't alone. Into the office right on their heels came Professor McGonagall. She fixed Harry with a gimlet eye, and said, "I'm very glad to see you're all right, Potter," in a voice that promised dire words later.

"Yes, yes," Slughorn puffed. "Delighted you're back, Harry m'boy. Truly delighted."

Ginny gave him one final squeeze, then got up and took a seat on Luna's other side. Harry sighed, before sitting up straight and turning to face them properly over the desk. He took Dumbledore's fir wand from the box, and pointed it at his own chair. It began to hover an inch above the ground and move to his left, so that Dumbledore's portrait would not be obscured by the back of his chair. When he settled to the floor again, he slipped the wand up his sleeve, and placed his hands on the desk.

"Voldemort is mortal now," he declared to the assembled people without preamble. "He has not been mortal for many years, ever since he began creating Horcruxes, which allowed him to store pieces of his soul outside his body." Oddly, only the adults reacted. Kingsley blinked sharply, McGonagall gasped aloud, and Slughorn gave an odd kind of groan. Harry ignored them all.

"He intended to make six Horcruxes, originally," he pressed on. "His own diary, which I destroyed in my second year. A ring that belonged to his grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt, which Professor Dumbledore destroyed last year. A locket belonging to Salazar Slytherin, which Ron destroyed in January. A chalice which had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, which we stole from Gringotts last night, and which Hermione destroyed before the Battle last night. A diadem once owned by Rowena Ravenclaw, which was destroyed by Fiendfyre just before the Battle started. And finally, that snake of his, Nagini, which Neville killed with the sword of Gryffindor.

"According to Professor Dumbledore," Harry inclined his head toward the portrait on the wall, "Voldemort also accidentally created a seventh Horcrux, on Halloween night, sixteen years ago. When the Killing Curse rebounded on him that night in Godric's Hollow, his spirit was blasted from his body. It was unable to move on thanks to the other Horcruxes, and a piece of it attached to a nearby living soul." He paused here, and tapped the lightning scar on his forehead. Sirius and Professor McGonagall looked horrified. Kingsley was nodding thoughtfully, and Slughorn had his eyes shut tight.

"That final piece of soul was evicted tonight," Harry finished. "The plan, such as it was, was for me to take the curse, so that the final soul fragment would be destroyed, and then kill Voldemort in turn. Unfortunately, I was not able to do so, and now he's on the run.

"I know this Battle was devastating, but it was for the enemy as well. Professor Dumbledore is right: once Voldemort finds out that I survived, he's going to go into hiding, and he's going to be nearly impossible to corner, so we'll need to make a plan to track him down quickly…" McGonagall looked appalled, and Kingsley was already shaking his head, but the objection came, surprisingly, from Neville.

"You can't be serious, Harry." His tone brooked no argument. He pulled a scrap of parchment from his pocket. From what Harry could see from across the room, it was covered with names. "At least fifty D.A. members died tonight," Neville said flatly. "That's not even counting anyone that was lost among the Order of the Phoenix, the teachers, the civilian reinforcements, the centaurs, and the house elves. The bodies are still lined up in the Great Hall. Some of those who survived this far are still going to die from complications and lack of Healing, because Madam Pomfrey can't be everywhere at once. And you want us to try to rally everyone with another brilliant plan? After the way the last one turned out?" His hands tightened on the hilt of the sword, and he looked ready to spit at Dumbledore's portrait.

Harry just stared at Neville. He had been expecting support from that quarter, not hostility. "Neville, what…?"

"We trained, and fought, and bled, and died for this. For the school. For _him_. For you! What do we have to show for it? Besides a stack of bodies?" he snarled. "Wands? Horcruxes? Prophecies? What happened to 'neither can live while the other survives'? Was I ever _anything_, or was it all Harry all along?" Neville wasn't talking to them anymore; he was shouting at Dumbledore's portrait. "What kind of sick idea was it letting Snape have this school? Why did everything have to be a bloody secret? Why couldn't you ever just _tell_ anyone what was going on, and let us make up our own damn minds!?"

He had leaned forward at the end, putting his weight on Gryffindor's sword, which sank several inches through the carpet and into the stone floor. Neville hardly seemed to notice, turning on his heel and beginning to pace up and down the office, tossing his head like his own bulldog patronus.

Harry was speechless, and so, it seemed, was Dumbledore. His eyes sparkled again with unshed tears as they followed Neville's progress, but he said nothing. After a moment, it was McGonagall who spoke up. "Longbottom, you were in the right tonight to demand that the students in your organization be allowed to stay. I don't think any of us can disagree with that anymore." Neville froze at her words.

Kingsley spoke up. "Agreed," he said in his deep drawl. "We were nearly overrun before Creevey brought your people back, and they all fought like heroes."

"And now the ones who didn't die like heroes will bleed out wishing they had," Neville said bitterly.

"We need to get healers here," said Ron. Everyone turned to look at him. His ears turned red, but he didn't hesitate. "We can't evacuate everyone to Saint Mungo's; there'd be no way to secure it. But if we can bring enough healers here, we should be able to stabilize people, at least."

"Ron's right," Hermione said, though she sounded very shaken. "It makes the most sense, tactically, to bring the healers to the wounded. Some of them wouldn't survive the apparition even if we could use Saint Mungos'."

Something shifted in Harry's memory. He turned his head, scanning the portraits on the walls. They had filled back up in ones and twos as word spread that a council was taking place, and now nearly all of the former headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were gazing down at them. He pointed up at a silver-haired witch, squinting to see the name engraved on the plate under her portrait.

"You. Dilys Derwent. You have a portrait at Saint Mungo's, right?" The portrait nodded, looking down at him curiously. "Do you think you could go there ahead of us and give a warning to the healers? The new shift should be arriving soon, and we'll need to head them off before they send the overnight shift home." Dilys continued to stare at him, so he added, "Please?"

After a moment, she nodded again, and stepped sideways out of her frame, disappearing from sight.

Harry turned back to the assembled people. "Good, now I don't expect they'll send over a bunch of healers just at the word of a portrait, so I think Kingsley and Professor Slughorn had better get over there as soon as we're done here.

"Now then," Harry continued, but he hesitated. All of them were staring at him. "What?" he asked defensively.

Neville replied. "You're getting the voice of command right, Harry. You're snapping orders and they sound _right_. Like the way you gave instructions in the first D.A.."

"Well," Ron cut in, grinning, "the way you did when you weren't being an over-sensitive prat about being in charge."

"Don't stop," Neville encouraged him. "It's what we all need right now, I think. To be told what to do." He didn't quite smile, but Harry felt the hostility between them diminish a bit.

"Then tell me what's wrong, Neville," Harry said sharply. He smiled back a little to take the harshness out of the instruction, but he studied Neville intently as he threw his shoulders back. It looked like Neville was going to snarl back at him, but he visibly stopped himself and shook his head.

"Harry, you three are sitting safe right here. You may have all had a bad time of it, but your best friends are still together. One of my two best friends died tonight. The other is down in the Room of Requirement right now, monged out of his mind, because he just lost _his_ best friend, and he thinks it didn't need to happen. I'm not sure I can convince myself otherwise, much less him. So many lost… and half of us shouldn't have died!

"Half you you shouldn't have lived!" Ron snapped with uncharacteristic harshness. "According to Seamus, you lot were planning a do-or-die final stand at the end of term _without_ Harry or Dumbledore or anyone else."

"We didn't have a choice!" Neville shot back. "We thought we'd been abandoned! No one told us anything! How were we supposed to trust in any kind of higher plan that resulted in _Snape_ running the school? We've been through hell this term. You have too, I know, but that doesn't mean that we haven't. We had no idea if any of you were coming back, or if Dumbledore had any kind of plan at all, or… You don't know what it was _like_, being here, with that bastard in control!" Neville's face was twisted in hate as he struggled to find words for what the ex-Potions Master's reign had been like. Dumbledore's portrait had its face buried in its hands.

"If he'd known you like you are now, Neville, I'm sure he would have told you something, but when he was alive to make the decisions, you weren't a leader, there _wasn't_ a reason to tell the rest of Hogwarts anything." Ron couldn't keep an edge of sarcasm back as he continued. "As for Snape and Hogwarts… How was Dumbledore supposed to have known how Snape would run the school? Do you honestly think it would have been better if those Carrows were flat-out in charge? No one ever said he _liked_ Snape, just that he used him, and he'd have been an idiot not to."

Neville was staring at Ron, but he seemed to deflate before their eyes. He crossed back to where he had been standing, wrenched the sword out of the floor, and flopped down into the seat Hermione had conjured for him. He placed the sword across the arms of the chair, and rested an elbow upon it as he held his face in his hand.

"Now," Harry said, returning to the business at hand. "We need to fortify the castle, especially if we're bringing healers here. We can use the recovery time to do that while those of us who are still on our feet use the time to rally our allies. We have Grawp on our side, and by the way the battle turned out, I think the centaurs must have joined in. We'll need to approach them, and someone needs to go to the house elves as well. I don't like the idea of them fighting, but after what happened to Dobby, I think we can convince them to stand with us. If _they_ choose to," he hastily added, seeing the look on Hermione's face.

"After that, we'll need to reach out to the goblins. The majority of them seem to have sided with Voldemort, but that doesn't mean they all have, and goblins are vicious and clever. I want that ingenuity on our side."

"You should talk to Bill about that," said Ginny. Harry nodded.

"Agreed. I think he was starting on that during our summer at Grimmauld Place, but with Voldemort out of sight, it was hard to convince them of any urgency. Now, they can't exactly pretend that nothing's going on, and we have the example of what he did to the messenger when he found out that we'd burglarized Gringotts."

"Don't you think that'll be a problem, though, Harry?" Hermione said worriedly.

"Yeah, I do," said Harry, "But compare us to Voldemort, and I think we're the lesser of evils as far as the goblins are concerned. The centaurs should be much more approachable."

"Hagrid could do that," said Ron.

"All right," Harry said. Seeing movement from the corner of his eye, Harry stopped and looked up. Dilys Derwent had returned to her frame, nodding.

"Thank you, Dilys. Professor Slughorn, Kingsley, head to Saint Mungo's now and start bringing healers through into the Great Hall. Light a bonfire if you have to; we need them here _fast._

"Professor McGonagall, start marshaling everybody who's still on their feet into two groups. One group, under Percy, to act as runners to assist the healers however they ask, the other to pick up Professor Flitwick and start fortifying the castle again.

"Ginny, go and talk to Bill, please. If he wants to leave immediately, see if he'll take Luna with him." Luna nodded dreamily, and Harry knew he'd made the right decision sending her. "Ron, go with Hagrid to the centaurs. Take Charlie with you, too. Hermione, head down to the kitchens and talk to the house elves. Tell them you've come from me, but _please_ stick to the plan. We'll have time for S.P.E.W. when Voldemort is dead.

"Sirius, do you remember that mirror you gave me a few years ago? Was that enchantment based on a Protean Charm as well?"

"Of course," said Sirius.

"We'll need a better way to communicate than Floo or even those galleons, especially since we don't need the subtlety of coins anymore. See if you can think of something."

"No problem, Harry." He glanced around. "The books in here might be useful, too."

"What about me, Harry?" Neville asked, sounding halfway between impressed and resentful.

"In the long term, you're keeping control of the D.A. They'll follow you sooner than they will me. Right now, though, you and I are going to have a long talk with Professor Dumbledore."

The next few minutes were filled with hustle and bustle as the weary survivors left the room to go about the duties he had assigned. Sirius began pulling certain books from the shelves, and Neville crossed the room to perch on the edge of the desk as Harry turned the chair to face Dumbledore's portrait once more.

"Very well then, Harry, Neville," the portrait said quietly. "What is it you would like to know?"

* * *

A/N:

Sharp readers will notice several shoutouts to the DAYDverse.

While this story is not itself compliant with the DAYDverse, I have taken a lot of inspiration from there, and a lot of future characterization will probably be based on those stories, so consider this both a recommendation of and a shoutout to Thanfiction.


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